Daily Journal: 19 July

Power to Improve

If I "think" life, I will "speak" life.

If I determine to declare what is good over myself, over others, over situations, I will eventually rejoice and celebrate what I have declared beforehand. If I neglect to determine from what is healthy, I will lack the power to improve and only draw from what is bad.

The power to improve begins with the intention of my heart and what I choose to cultivate there

Luke 6:43-45 (GNT)

“A healthy tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a poor tree bear good fruit. Every tree is known by the fruit it bears; you do not pick figs from thorn bushes or gather grapes from bramble bushes. A good person brings good out of the treasure of good things in his heart; a bad person brings bad out of his treasure of bad things. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Regularly, I am challenged about what I treasure in my heart and what I have stored there. The way the Good News Translation words this passage indicates to me that a treasure of good and bad can be found in each heart. But a good person will intentionally choose to bring out the good that’s been stored there. A bad person will focus on the bad, the negative, the undesired, and bring out that which has been stored there.

If we neglect to focus on the good and determine to store goodness, we naturally default to the squalor that is, even unintentionally, stored in the soul. My intention to store goodness, and then eat from that goodness, is what produces a healthy tree rather than a poor tree. I can choose to eat junk that's there as well, but then I'll be depleting the quality of my life and I'll carry a burden of weight I don't have to carry.

I can have days, even weeks, where I seem to be growing a whole bramble bush and can’t step through the tangle, yet I can have other days, and weeks, where I seem to be growing an orchard of figs and I’m handing them around to share.

The question is, what am I producing more of in my heart and what am I choosing to draw from?

On the days that I feel my heart is tangled up with bramble bushes, how will I find the figs I have stored? There isn’t only thorns there, even though that may be how it feels. If there is a good tree growing, and I am putting down roots into the soil, I can access good fruit. That’s where the importance of cultivation is found. What do I want to produce? What will I determine to draw from?

Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NLV)

Good will come to the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the river. It will not be afraid when the heat comes but its leaves will be green. It will not be troubled in a dry year, or stop giving fruit.

I have the power to improve my perspective and pick from the goodness stored in my heart. I cannot neglect my intention to do so or the bad that is also there will spill out instead.

The more I choose to pick from the goodness stored, the more goodness I store, and the healthier and stronger I become. But it is a choice.

I pray we can acknowledge the type of trees we’re cultivating and what our heart is storing. I pray we will be intentional about developing a good, healthy tree so that our lives will continually develop and produce good, healthy fruit; so much so that on the days where it seems only brambles are growing we can still pick from the goodness we have stored.